Georgia Today: Property tax elimination; Endangered right whales; Protesting without a permit

Peter Biello: Welcome to the Georgia Today podcast. Here we bring you the latest reports from the GPB newsroom. On today's episode, Georgia lawmakers reject a proposal to nearly eliminate property taxes for homeowners. Rules meant to protect endangered right whales are now also endangered, and a new bill seeks to make protesting without a permit a lot more expensive. 

Carden Summers It is something that parents should have taught people a long time ago. Don't block the streets, don't block any kind of roads because that way you don't stop a parent from getting to school or vice versa. You don't stop an ambulance, you don't stop a fire truck. 

Peter Biello: Today is Wednesday, March 4. I'm Peter Biello, and this is Georgia Today. 

Story 1:

Peter Biello: The Georgia House of Representatives rejected a proposal yesterday to nearly eliminate homeowner property taxes. The legislation required a constitutional amendment that would be put in front of voters and needed two-thirds majority from the House to pass. Republicans argued state property taxes are too high, while Democrats said renters would suffer if property taxes were nearly eliminated. Republican leaders asked for the bill to be reconsidered today. 

Story 2:

Peter Biello: Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones says eliminating the state income tax remains a long-term goal for Republican lawmakers. Speaking last night on GPB's Lawmakers, Jones defended proposals to continue lowering the tax. 

Burt Jones We have lowered the state income tax every year. We'll do it again this year. And we're planning on getting us to that point of zero, but we've always said we're going to be very responsible with it. And that's why we have the annual budgetary process. And our main constitutional obligation is to balance the budget. 

Peter Biello: The state Senate is considering proposals that would either lower the rate to 3.9% or eliminate it for roughly 70% of taxpayers. Jones is running for governor, and eliminating the state income tax is a cornerstone of his campaign. 

Story 3:

Peter Biello: Reaction is rolling in after yesterday's unprecedented verdict in the Colin Gray trial. Gray was found guilty of murder for providing his son with a rifle used in the 2024 fatal shooting at Apalachee High School. GPB's Chase McGee has more. 

Chase McGee: During the trial, prosecutors showed cellphone records from Collin's wife Marcee, showing she made searches about safe gun storage laws on websites like Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety. After the verdict, Everytown senior vice president for law and policy, Nick Suplina, says safe storage legislation in Georgia could help prevent the next school shooting. 

Nick Suplina: One, in particular, that makes it quite clear what a parent's responsibility is when it comes to locking up their firearms in the home when there's a child. 

Chase McGee: Last year, Georgia House Rep. Michelle Au sponsored a bill that would create criminal penalties should a child access an unsecured firearm and hurt someone with it. That bill is unlikely to pass. For GPB News, I'm Chase McGee. 

Story 4:

Peter Biello: The Georgia Senate advanced a bill yesterday that would increase the penalties for obstructing a street during a protest. GPB's Sara Kallis reports. 

Sarah Kallis: Senate Bill 443 would make blocking a street or highway during an unpermitted protest a high aggravated misdemeanor and punishable by a $5,000 fine or up to one year in jail. Republican State Sen. Carden Summers of Cordele in central Georgia sponsored the bill. 

Carden Summers: It is something that parents should have taught people a long time ago: Don't block the streets. Don't blocked any kind of roads because that way you don't stop a parent from getting to school or vice versa. You don't to stop an ambulance. You don't stop a fire truck. 

Sarah Kallis: Democrats raised concern that the bill would hinder the constitutional right to peacefully protest. SB 443 passed 35-17 along party lines and now moves to the House for their approval. For GPB News, I'm Sarah Kallis at the state Capitol. 

Story 5:

Peter Biello: The former DeKalb County sheriff who was convicted of murder in the plot to assassinate a political rival has died in prison. The Georgia Department of Corrections confirms Sidney Dorsey died of natural causes at Augusta State Medical Prison on Monday. Dorsey made national headlines when, after he lost a reelection bid to Derwin Brown in 2000, he conspired to have Brown fatally shot. He later was sentenced to life in prison. Sidney Dorsey was 86 years old. 

Story 6:

Peter Biello: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced plans to roll back some protections for North Atlantic right whales. The agency today filed notice that it's seeking to change regulations that slow down ships to prevent them from colliding with the critically endangered whales. Marine scientist Nora Ives of the advocacy group Oceana says about 380 North Atlantic right whales remain, and ship strikes are one of their leading causes of death. 

Norah Ives: The science supports slowdowns as the most effective measure to protect these whales. You know, ultimately every study that has examined both vessel strike risk and vessel strike lethality has found that they are both reduced by lowering vessel speed. 

Peter Biello: NOAA says it's modernizing the regulations to adapt to new technologies, support American industry and reduce red tape. The ship speed regulations have been in place since 2008. The agency is taking public comments on its plans through June 2. The right whales spend their winters off the southeast Atlantic coast, including Georgia, for their calving season. 

Story 7:

Peter Biello: The Atlanta Track Club says it will match prize money for the three elite runners who were led off course during Sunday's U.S. Half Marathon Championships. Race organizers say a police officer working the event was struck by a vehicle nearby, prompting the women's pace vehicle to follow a police motorcycle in the wrong direction. The club says Jess McClain will receive first place prize money, while Emma Grace Hurley and Edna Kurgat will split the combined total of second and third place prize money. 

Story 8:

Peter Biello: A program in Columbus has begun work helping people transition from jail to life back in the community. The latest Operation New Hope unit at the West Central Georgia Regional Hospital helps people transition using apartment-style pods and customized therapy. Organizers say this reduces the number of people waiting in local jails for crimes related to mental illness. The first group of 10 patients began treatment last week. Program operators are working to fill the remaining 10 beds. Operation New Hope units are run by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. Other such units are in operation in Savannah and Milledgeville. 

Story 9:

Peter Biello:The Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is seeking volunteers for a river cleanup effort called Sweep the Hooch. The event typically brings more than 1,500 volunteers together each year at dozens of parks and creeks throughout the Chattahoochee River watershed. Volunteers set out on foot, wade in streams, or paddle canoes and kayaks to pick up trash. Participants can choose from more than 65 sites beginning at the river's headwaters in North Georgia down to the Columbus area. Last year, volunteers removed more than 41 tons of trash. Volunteers can sign up at sweepthehooch.org. 

Story 10:

Peter Biello: Each week, Salvation South editor Chuck Reece joins GPB on the air for a commentary on our ever-evolving Southern culture. Last week Chuck delivered a lecture at Mercer University's Center for Southern Studies in Macon. The next morning he had breakfast at the H&H, a restaurant that's been feeding Maconites for nearly 70 years. A restaurant that has stories of its own to tell about the South. Here's Chuck. 

Chuck Reece: Mama Louise and Mama Hill have gone home, but their restaurant, the H&H, lives on. Louise Hudson and her cousin Inez Hill opened the H&H restaurant on Forsyth Street in downtown Macon, Ga., in 1959. Sixty-seven years later, it still opens every morning at 7 a.m., 8 on weekends, to serve breakfast then lunch. Now, in my teenage years, a visit to the H&H was part of a rock and roll pilgrimage stop in Rose Hill Cemetery to hang out at the graves of Dwayne Allman and Barry Oakley, then lunch at the H&H where Mama Louise and Mama Hill fed the Allman Brothers band in their early lean years on credit or out of the goodness of their hearts. Now it's part of a Southern history pilgrimage. I was in Macon last week to deliver the annual Byington Lecture at Mercer University's Spencer B. King Jr. Center for Southern Studies. The next morning, needing breakfast, we headed to the H&H. Stacey and I both had a butch biscuit — a sausage or bacon, egg and cheese handful that's named after the late Butch Trucks, one of the band's two drummers. It was early but inside the room was already awake, coffee cups clinking, most of the tables full, the smell of breakfast biting like true love in the air. I kept thinking about how a place like this watched the South misbehave and try to grow up. In 1959, when H&H opened its doors, Macon was still dug in on the wrong side of history. Yet here sat this Black-owned cafe, feeding whoever would walk through the door and mind their manners. Over the years, civil rights workers, lawyers, working-class Maconites and hungry musicians have fed their souls and bellies here. During the civil rights movement, arguments about what the South should be raged at the courthouse and in churches, but the daily practice of a better South was quieter inside the H&H: A plate set down in front of you, refill of your coffee cup, a server who would probably address you as "hon." The night before, I stood in the university hall talking about the stories we tell to repair this region. The next morning, that story arrived on a biscuit. Institutions like Mercer's King Center honor and repair the South in myriad ways through stories, research, and digging — sometimes literally — in the dirt of our region. But the H&H does it by opening bright and early every day to prove that another South has been sitting here all along, waiting for us to sit down together and eat. Come see us anytime at SalvationSouth.com. 

Peter Biello: If you'd like to hear more from Chuck, including some deeper dives into Southern topics with his Salvation South Deluxe podcast episodes, visit gpb.org/SalvationSouth. 

Outro:

Peter Biello: And that is all the news that's fit for the podcast today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Updates are available anytime at gpb.org/news. And we're gonna have the latest headlines again tomorrow afternoon. So make sure you subscribe to this podcast. Now if you've got feedback on anything you've heard or perhaps you know of something in Georgia that we should know about and maybe do some reporting on, email us. The address is georgiatoday@gpb.org. I'm Peter Biello. Thank you again for listening. We will see you tomorrow. 

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For more on these stories and more, go to GPB.org/news